Un-friend, un-follow, and sell are the negative sides to Facebook, Twitter and Empire Avenue, respectively. Each of these shows that it is possible to give your vote in Social Media without actually saying anything. This is a lot like the theory that “you vote when you shop, by not buying Jiffy you say that you don’t like Jiffy”.  My questions is though, why does it matter to me if you stop following me?  (or why do I like honey more than jelly with my peanut butter?)

For brevity’s sake I will use “follow” to refer to friending, liking, following, buying, or selling from now on.

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t really care if you stop following me. This is not because I am a heartless bastard, which you probably now think I am, it is because your un-follow doesn’t change anything for me. Ok, it is possible that you could have been the next million dollar deal maker in my life and changed my bank account forever – but if you are that fickle about me you wouldn’t feel comfortable with me holding your cash.  I would hope that my work speaks for itself, despite who I am or am not online.

As long as there has been social interaction, there has been a discussion about what it means when someone stops following you.”Why isn’t the hot girl in Calculus talking to me anymore?” Yes, there were hot girls in my Calc classes in High School and College.  Was it because I was a year younger than everyone in my class? Was it because I was socially awkward and emotionally unstable in High School? Does it really even matter now?

Answers: Probably. Probably. No, but I am probably am “friends” with them on FB now.

On certain days Social Media and the people who are involved seem nothing more than those curiously passionate friends in High School that would walk right up to you and say, “You didn’t <insert asinine reason here>, so we can’t be friends anymore”. Only with Social Media, it seems that people are saying, “If you don’t follow me, I am not going to follow you.” Take that! Damn, I am so offended because you obviously care so much about our social connection that you are willing to throw it away for what could be something as small as an oversight on my part.

Yes, I hope that people stay happy with me but I cannot expect that everyone is going to agree with me all the time.  I am going to offend someone out there when I bring up dinosaurs, evolution, the fact that I am not particularly into religion, that I don’t want to listen to political pundits, that I believe that we actually did walk on the moon, or that “me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbert.”*  It’s OK that you don’t agree with me or like what I say. If you want to stop following me or stop talking to me, great! That is totally your choice and I am proud of you for exercising your right to that choice. I exercise my right to that choice every day.

The problem I have, and the reason I am even writing all this drivel, is that so many people dwell on the negative and deal in the negative every single day. With social interaction, whether personal or impersonal, if you are negative then you breed negativity. If you say something negative, the next guy is going to talk about what you said and share your negativity with someone else.  Your negativity may effect someone’s attitude, which gets projected to someone else as “Man, that guy is having a bad day” or “What the fuck!? That asshole just cut me off!”.  This gets people no where, just like dwelling on whether someone follows you back or not. Obviously, I am never going to watch That 70′s show again, because Ashton won’t follow me back on Twitter.  What an asshole.

The reason I love Social Media (and the internet) is because it gives me the opportunity to find out about new people, get exposed to things I have never even dreamed possible or likely, and have real discussion with people that I would never have met otherwise.  There are tons of great ways to be involved in Social Media and there are millions of people out there with who to interact. If 1, 100, or even 1000 people don’t care for you – Screw ‘em. It doesn’t matter, you will find more people out there. If you can’t find more people, then maybe you should try something else.

You can un-follow me here:

http://twitter.com/mbernier

http://facebook.com/mkbernier

http://empireavenue.com/mbernier – lots more links here, please vote with your un-follows!

*A quote from Super Troopers, one of my favorite movies.

I have been playing with Twitter Lists today, since I was given the privilege today.  The first thing I thought was, I would really like to get a list of all my Denver friends. So here you go:

Denver Area People – 500 users

Denver Area People 2 – 500 users

Denver Area People 3 – 288 Users

Denver Area Businesses – 12 users

If you know someone who should be on this list, please tell me and I will add them in.  Just contact me on Twitter!

Twitter API with Zend Part 1.  Post Moved to ReinforceMedia.com

So, when I built ProbableFollow.com it was perfectly clear to me why I was building it.  It seems that maybe I live in my own little bubble where flowers bloom, the sun rises every day, and as I skip and whistle through the forest while all the wonderful animals harmonize with me.

It turns out that my idea has caused some controversy and some very confused tweeple.  Some people seem to think that I am making a statement and pushing my non-twitter-purist ideals on them because they have a low follow back probability.  Some people seem to think that I am aggrandizing those that follow everyone back, just because I put the 98%+ crowd on the homepage.

So, I will explain what your percentage means, from my point of view:

0% - You never follow anyone - OR - follow so few people relative to those that follow you that it doesn’t even register as a single percent - OR – you are really popular (@aplusk) and there is no way you could ever want to, need to, or think about following all those people back.

1%-10% – There is a good chance you have not discovered TweetDeck, or figured out all the filtering options - OR - You are a person who believes that you should only follow people you know who are good friends. “Following anyone else would cause too much noise” - OR – you are really popular (@aplusk) and there is no way you could ever want to, need to, or think about following all those people back.

11%-35% – You are careful about who you follow and probably often remove people who are too noisy (like @guykawasaki) or who do not contribute anything to your day, knowledge of the world, etc.

36%-60% -You are either careful who you follow and haven’t cleaned up the riff-raff yet - OR – just started using an auto-follow app/site.

61%-80% - I have found that when I was in this percentile, I was following more people than who followed me and was stuck at the following limits that Twitter imposes (they typically allow a 10% difference) - OR – you went on a following rampage, hoping to get more followers.

If you are pushing the following limits and want some more freedom, I suggest using Dossy’s Twitter Karma and unfollowing some people.

81%-95% - You probably have an auto-follow app running on your account, you probably follow people when they talk to you, you know what TweetDeck is and you use it religiously.

96%-99.4% – You find it very important to follow people back and typically stay on top of making sure that everyone who follows is followed back.  Probably, you were actually working and got behind on your following, or it is Follow Friday.

99.5%-100% – This is a special place that is hard to stay in.  You are religious about following everyone back - OR – you never follow anyone unless they follow you - OR – you stay on top of cleaning house when someone doesn’t return the favor.

—–

If you don’t like these descriptions or agree with them, please tell me why in the comments below.

These are all of the features I would like to see in a single twitter app.  If there is a twitter app that already has all of these features, then tell me, so I can STFU and get my perfect app.  I would love it if this could happen.

Twitter Features

• Following/Unfollowing
  • Allow me to follow or unfollow people from the app. I know the API has this feature.
• Search
  • Yep, I want to be able to search.
  • Yep, I would like the results to be in a time line like my normal feed
  • Yep, I would like to have multiple searches
  • Nope, you don’t have to keep these running in the background, just run them when I look at them.
    • Please try to get all the ones since the last one I looked at, or allow me a limit, or tell me about a limit, of how many you will pull if there are too many since the last time I looked.
• Hashtags
  • You’ve got reply functionality, now link the #hashtags to the search page for them.

App Features

• Always on top
  • Give me the option. (Thanks pwitter!)
• API limitations awareness
  • know your limitations, compensate.  If I get 100 tweets per minute, you still don’t need to check every minute, if it means I am going to get 100 error messages from your app.  I would rather it be late, than see how your algorithm for pulling tweets is broken. (had problems on twitteriffic once an hour and pwitter 3 times in the first hour I used it)
• Multiple twitter accounts in one feed
  • I choose the outline color for each account
  • Click the reply button in the feed item and replies from that account
• Reply button functionality
  • I know why the @username always goes to the front of the twitter post I am writing, but I would like the option to turn that off.  I want the @username to go where my cursor is in the message. Having to copy/paste or write it out myself sucks.
• Retweet option
  • I want to be able to 1-click to put a whole tweet in my typing box, with the letters RT and the original twitterer’s name
  • Don’t use via, seriously wtf!?
• Mark feed items as read
  • Many of the programs out there do this, many don’t (pwitter I’m looking at you)
  • Also, when you get more items from my feed, please remember where I was, and leave the last tweet I touched in the active window
    • I don’t know about you, but I don’t watch my twitter feed.  I take mini vacations from work to check it.
• Idiot Proofing
  • I have a feeling most of my request fall under this, but bear with me anyways…
  • I always send half a tweet, because my enter button is too close to my quotes button ( ” ), so ctrl + enter option is really nice (thanks pwitter)
• Status Updates
  • Update my status on Adium, iChat, etc.  Twitteriffic does this with style.
  • Would be cool if it would update my status on FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. too

Display Features

• Timeline
  • Pull EVERYTHING since the last feed item I looked at
    • For multiple accounts, this means for the last item I looked at for each account, respectively
  • Pull items in the order they were tweeted, don’t add a bunch of crap at the bottom.  If you pull all the new stuff, you don’t have to worry about making sure I don’t miss something. (Twitteriffic pulls Replies and DMs to the bottom of your feed, why!?)
• Replies
  • Make sure that replies to me have a background color that is easy to identify quickly.
  • Also, please make sure that it is easy to identify when I have that feed item selected.
  • These should NEVER look like all the other feed items, they are special, so make them look that way
• Background options
  • Make as many colors as you want for backgrounds, but at least include black (spaz I’m looking at you)
• User Icon on left of twitter post
  • Do not wrap the twitter post around the icon, that’s annoying
  • Or allow me the option to customize this

Extras

• Image posting to TweetPic (again idiot proofed)
  • drag + drop into the tweet window would be amazing, I don’t really like having to use a browse/upload feature
• Tr.im support
  • I like tr.im because it is one of the shortest url smashers out there. Also, they are great guys
• Growl support
  • It’s great to have this, but please make sure it works.  Half the time, the apps I have seen have it, but the notifications never come up.

Bonus Points for Style

• Grouping My users
  • Tweetdeck does it, but I don’t like how they do it.  It would be better if I didn’t have to employ a monitor-sized window to see all my groups
  • Allowing me to group them across multiple accounts = super mega mega bonus points
• Make it free – also see 3rd item in “Plugins” below
  • I know this is a hugely tall order for all the features that I am asking.  BUT, if you can put ads in every 20-50 feed items you could make good money.
  • I understand you have to make money, and rightly so.  Putting an ad in for a free item is totally cool with me.
  • Now, if you can put in ads based on the content of the tweets around the ads…I might actually click them and not ignore them.
• Plugins
  • Make an interface that will allow for plugins. This way you don’t have to write ALL of this code at once, and you can allow 3rd parties to write code for you.
  • This will allow anyone to choose their own suite of features and customize your software to them.
  • You could charge for plugins.

I will probably think of more things I would love to have, I know I am taking a pie-in-the-sky approach to my feature requests…

Added After publishing

• I would like to be able to ctrl+click or apple+click to open the link without losing the twitter window. So I can open a bunch of links without having to track down my window or have my mouse lose focus on the current window.
• I want to be able to search within my timeline.  I am tired of losing quality twitter posts that I want to revisit or retweet.
• Suggestive features to choose a name from people I follow.  Could suggest as I type after the @ symbol, or just be a drop down.
• From @xstaticstacey: add the ability to see all replies all the time

I have been doing quite a bit of marketing via Twitter recently.  During this effort, I have noticed a couple of trends in the automatic Direct Messages I am getting when I follow people. (I am assuming that most people have an automatic Direct Message).  Some of them I don’t like, some I understand, and some I feel are inappropriate.  You make the call, I just listed them in generic groups below.

Excited

• You’re following me?  FABULOUS!  U Rock!  Let the tweets begin.
• Thanks for the follow! You rock Please check out my Young Internet Entrepreneur blog ******
• You totally ROCK, thanks for the follow! Please @me anytime. Seen ***** yet? How can I help U?

FaceBook

What I don’t understand about this one is, I am following you on Twitter so that I don’t have to find you on FaceBook.  Also, facebook (for me) is a site for personal relationships, not business or casual encounters.

• Thx for the follow! Extreme value on new group in facebook ***** check it, and see for yourself
• Thanks for following me! Please feel free to add me on Facebook “***** ******”.
• Hello ****. Great to connect with you. Feel Free to add me on Facebook too: *****
• Thanks for following me *****, let’s also connect on Facebook – ******
• Thanks for the follow, look forward to learning more about you. Lets connect on Facebook *****

Helper

• thank you for following, ☯ I’ll try to find you as many job leads as I can!
• hey thx for following me ****! i use Twitter for both personal and business so feel free to ask anything
• Thanks for following Kona Endurance. We help pro and amateur endurance athletes increase VO2 max and reduce lactic acid.
• Thank you so much for the follow. If there is any way that I can support you, please let me know. I wish you the best.

Genuine Response

• Thank you, great concept! I will do, not sure what to do as the full site isn’t live yet. The beta will be live in March.
• Thank you for following me. I am going to follow you back!
• It’s nice to meet you, *****.  Thanks for following.

Multilingual

• Obrigado por me seguir! Thanks for following me! Diga-me como lhe posso ser útil. Let me know how I can help you.

Religious

These are DMs with religious connotation.

• Have A Blessed day.
• Happy New Year, and may you have many more blessed days.
• Thanks for following  me *****.May God continue to bless you and your family. *****
• thanks for the follow…blessings.

Sharing

• Nice to Tweet you!  Hope I can share with you my world!
• Hello, im looking forward to reading your updates, dont be a stranger!
• Thanks for following… Look forward to Tweeting with you!
• Thanks for following me. look forward to tweeting with you
• Welcome to the stream enjoy our moments in time
• Hi – Thanks for sharing the journey with me!  Look forward to tweeting with you soon…

Site Links

I call these spammy, because they are DMs intended to get people to have a second chance to see a site link or URL.

• thanks for following me.Join my unisuccess space for better networking :http://unisuccess-space.ning.com/
• Thanks for following me. Check out  www.Soles4Souls.org where we giveaway a pair of shoes every 17 seconds
• Thnx for following! I will follow u 2! BTW I just launched my book! -> http://twitclicks.com/xsfn
• Thank you for following http://www.tweetgiveaway.com. I look forward to your Tweets
• Thanks for following  me! Be sure to check out my site http://www.TheGadget411.com and comment a post!  IT TAKES ONLY 10

Spammy

These are different than site links, because they usually come with the “get my free gift” message.

• Thanks for following, look forward to getting to know you. Posted some cool gifts for you at http://www.xaviernelson.com
• Thank you for following me! Meanwhile you can watch this free videos about list building @ http://tinyurl.com/8tjmxz
• Hi and Thanks for the follow! Grab Your Free Copy of *The Twitter Report* @ http://www.MLMIsEasyOnline.com
• Here’s my gift to you http://TwitPWR.com/3uP/ Thanks for following me. I look forward to connecting more!
• Hey Twitter friend, thanks for the follow! – The Monetizer’s moneymakers are here: http://themonetizer.blogspot.com

Thanks

• Thanks for following @TopWineNews (Wine Lover). Tell us what you’re drinking tonite and we’ll RT, sharing with the Twibe.
• Thanks for following Twit2Win! Good luck in our Tweetstakes!
• Thanks for following me. I look forward to networking with you in the months ahead.  Ask me about SocialTo

Do you have a category that should be added here? How about a classic DM that you have received?

• I really wish I had a video recorder on my iPhone #
• 48 emails and 92 twitter posts to start out my day… #
• @jhartikainen yeah, i know. It’s pretty lame that the iPhone cant/wont do it without jailbreak. #
• @ctshryock you gotta protect the baby!!! *hopefully getting it today, even though its scheduled for tomorrow. #
• The tubes provide Soma for the masses (social anesthesia) http://tr.im/ed2t #
• @ctshryock haha, yeah, but he must really LOVE his computer. Is it like putting a kid in a stroller? #
• @oudiantebi Thank GOD that IE6 is dying, I can only hope that people realize windows has updates available… #
• asking people to stop posting the same thing to twitter repeatedly. #
• I think FedEx is walking my macbook to Denver, the status hasn’t changed since Saturday. #
• I don’t believe that going from a paid for, built, indexed website to a yahoo pages website is ever a good idea. #
• The FedEx guy came and dropped off a package, it was too small. I asked, and he said he’s not coming back today. Maybe tomorrow? #
• @ctshryock with a yahoo pages site, or fedex? #
• Apple finally charged me for MacBook Pro. I am paying off the card with money in my bank. No balance to carry over!! #
• @ctshryock boo. Thats gross #
• Paying cash for $4200 worth of wedding stuff and macbook feels like I am doing something naughty. #
• @chriseaster haha, the reservation/deposit for our location. Was ~2400 total. But, 1300 will go towards food. #
• @chriseaster uh…my friends and family…not me!! #
• Mizzou Tigers Rugby shirts $10 http://tr.im/eecz #
• What kind of person would deny the holocaust existed? A Catholic Bishop, that’s who! http://tr.im/eedw #
• @chriseaster I’ll see if you have what I am looking for. #
• do people still use xanga? really? #

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• Sick of judgemental people. #
• Check out the unlimited online backup service chosen by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. http://tr.im/e3d1 #
• @chriseaster I just noticed that http://www.failedproposals.com has links to http://www.groomsadvice.com and http://www.themanregistry.com!! #
• Everyone’s site was marked as “This site may harm your computer” on Saturday http://tinyurl.com/dmn29v #
• How do you get a client to pay, when they don’t answer email or phone calls? *sent invoice weeks ago #
• I think I might write software that is so convoluted I make 10x what I sell it for, in support… #
• listening to Blues All Morning Long #
• Comcast gives 10 second porn preview during super bowl http://tr.im/e6v5 #
• @stevepowell I wish I hosted it, would be easy. However, I don’t. #
• In case there was any confusion out there: Java and JavaScript are NOT the same thing. It’s an unfortunate coincidence #
• @charlesmhudson Too many clients are saying “I want Java on my site” “Can you do that with Java?” #
• @charlesmhudson oh god NOOOO!!!!! #
• Rick Astley, please go away. (Not a rick roll): http://tinyurl.com/bzbmmg thanks @chriseaster #
• @jhartikainen All I have to say is “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you go” <begins throwing up> #

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• I forgot to listen when I was telling myself that an rss feed will not work as a sitemap for google. What was I doing? #
• Apparently Wendy’s employees get paid too much http://tinyurl.com/cuupq9 #
• My blog currently ranks on the second page for my name. There are people who have had websites longer, but I will be #1, oh yes I will. #
• you follow me, with 1 update in your account, you are following 90+ people and only 5 following you…uh, no I’m good. #
• Do I even want to know what happened to Dennis Rodman? I don’t think I do. He scares me #
• Do I accept the offer of $130 for a domain, ask for $150 (it started $200) or start an auction at $130??? #
• @chriseaster Thought you would be interested in this: http://newlyweds.about.com/od/gettingalong/a/newlywedfights.htm #

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• @chriseaster you can learn it! There are 100 different books on any prog language.. #
• Making arnold palmer’s and cool hand lukes at home: Priceless #
• Just hand coded and added a google sitemap to mycityheadlines.com #
• @chriseaster haha, send me an email with what you want, and I will look into it. Learning a new prog language is like learning Spanish… #
• @chriseaster Arnold palmers are especially good when made with “Simply Lemonade” and homemade ice tea #
• It’s amazing. I go to bed with 1 unread message, get to work and there are 30 #
• I have seen 4 people this morning on twitter who follow no one, but have tons of followers…how does that work? #
• @hospadam wait, you are working for Apple!!? #
• since @jhartikainen is giving away stuff, I will do the same. If you want a SUPER discount on web hosting DM me, I will get you a code #
• website with an interface learning curve anyone? http://m.mn2020.org/ #
• @ctshryock Holy crap that sux #
• Chipotle, here we come! #
• @chriseaster it’s like #
• @chriseaster http://www.simplyorangejuice.com/ #
• Anyone up for a panini? http://tinyurl.com/aruq34 #
• pineapples get sticky http://www.explosm.net/comics/1541/ #
• @nakedguynurpool My co-worker don’t type gud #
• Extremely minimalist browser detection: http://tinyurl.com/c5qefs #
• @ctshryock “Prepared for Shipment” #
• My new macbook has been “prepared for shipment”. Does this mean monday?? #
• Google Ajax API Playground – I just peed a little http://code.google.com/apis/ajax/playground/ #

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